


when and where did we go cold?

by FreshBrains



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Bittersweet, Childhood Sweethearts, F/F, POV Alice Cooper, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Pregnancy, Reunions, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 07:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12476808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: “You wanted this life so badly,” Penelope says. “All I ever wanted was to escape it. Only one of us got our wish.”





	when and where did we go cold?

**Author's Note:**

> For this anonymous Tumblr prompt: 
> 
> _Alice: “Why are you so fucking angry Penelope. Why do you hate me ?”  
>  Penelope: “Because...if I didn’t, then I’d probably love you."_
> 
> And what a prompt! In this fic, the characters are in their mid-to-late twenties. Alice and Hal are married in this, but their relationship is not the focus, nor is Clifford and Penelope's. Alice is pregnant with Polly and Penelope with the twins. And we're operating under the idea that Alice is the only person in this fic who does not know about the Blossom-Cooper relationship.

“I’m going to stay late at the Register tonight,” Hal says, kissing Alice on the top of her head as he shrugs on his jacket. “I’ll pick up something good at the store. What are you craving?” He leans down and kisses the swell of her belly.

“Hm,” Alice murmurs, mind already spinning as to why Hal is needed so late the night after that week’s issue went to print. “Pringles, maybe. Sour cream and onion. Something salty.”

“Of course,” Hal says. He leaves her with a lingering smile as he leaves the house. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Alice says after him, blowing a kiss. The second the door shuts and lock clicks, she’s hauling herself up and out of her chair. At nearly eight months along, she hasn’t slowed down a bit, still editing the paper with her gleaming red pen and micromanaging half the town through perfectly-timed interviews and slight, usually harmless misquotes.

But she’s still a bit lonely. She hasn’t talked to Hermione in months, mainly because she hadn’t exactly made her disproval of Hermione’s snake-charmer fiancé unknown. FP’s gotten his ass in prison yet again and Gladys skipped town shortly after. Mary and Fred are sweethearts as always, but they’re trying to get pregnant, so Alice suspects they may be keeping their distance from her heavily-pregnant self.

She’s in need of a conflict. A _mystery_. And Hal’s recent sneaking, slinking, and secrecy must mean _something_. She’s not concerned with an affair—Hal’s never shown interest in another woman since their first date. And since she handles the finances, she doesn’t think it’s money related.

She makes her way down the hallway towards her and Hal’s shared office. They used to keep separate spaces, but his old study was the perfect room for the nursery, and they worked well together. After stopping to use the restroom for the hundredth time that day, she plops into his desk chair and scans the contents of his work space: three back issues of the Register with printing errors circled, a handful of letters from advertisers, a cup of blue pens, a work order for the contractor coming in to re-carpet the nursery.

“Bingo,” Alice whispers, snatching up a scrap of paper with two phone numbers scrawled on it, both from the area. They weren’t contacts for the paper, since Hal never left home without his Register notebook and kept all of his numbers in there, but there wasn’t a name attached. After the second number, the words _off hours_ were scribbled in an unfamiliar hand.

Despite the late hour, Alice calls the first number. It rings half a dozen times before opening on an answering machine. “ _Thank you for calling the office of Clifford Blossom. If you’d like to leave a message…”_

Alice hangs up. Out of all people, Clifford Blossom? Hal never even knew him from high school since Clifford was five years older than them. And the Blossoms kept their careful distance from the Register after a not-so-nice editorial Clifford penned about Blossom Maple Farms the year before.

Of course, there was Penelope. There was always Penelope.

Alice calls the second number. It rings three times before the woman herself answers in a soft, polite tone. “ _Blossom residence, this is Penelope speaking_.” Alice can’t remember the last time she heard that voice.

She quickly hangs up and leans against the counter, thinking up her next move. She knows that if she waits for Hal to come home, he’ll just brush it off, give her a kiss and some flowers and move on. And she knows that she’ll probably let him because she’s pregnant and tired and should be eating bon-bons with her feet up.

So instead of waiting, she grabs her purse and her keys.

*

By the time Alice rings Thornhill’s death-knoll doorbell, she has to pee again.

She expects an impeccably-dressed maid to answer the bell, so she’s surprised when Penelope herself opens up the heavy mahogany door with two hands. She’s even more surprised to see the huge swell of Penelope’s stomach under a red plaid bathrobe.

“You’re pregnant,” Alice blurts, hands flying to her own baby bump. “Like, _really_ pregnant!”

Penelope flushes pink. She looks so _small_ in her flannel pajamas, belly leading the way. Her hair is in a neat braid down her back—too neat for a woman who just got out of bed. And the bags under her eyes show she’s getting about as much sleep as Alice.

But she’s still… _lovely_. Pretty’s too casual of a word, but Alice wouldn’t generously call her beautiful. Penelope is petite and snub-nosed and has always looked just as naïve as she actually is. Alice always had a taste for the innocent ones.

“I’m on bed rest,” Penelope says. “Clifford thought it best to keep the pregnancy quiet until…”

“Birth? That’s a little drastic.” Penelope is so big that Alice imagines she hasn’t been outside of Thornhill in months.

“I’m having twins,” Penelope says quietly. “It’s a high-risk pregnancy. Or at least that’s what Clifford and the doctors told me.”

Alice feels silly all of a sudden, showing up while Penelope is obviously unwell. Penelope was always that tiny, mousy girl in class at school, the girl with drooping socks who always had to blow her nose. She never had any friends and wasn’t involved in any extracurriculars, even though she was exceptionally smart.

People thought it was because she was a snob. How could she not be one? Second to the Blossoms, her family was the wealthiest in town, and nobody had any kind thoughts about her ruthless businessman father. But they didn’t know her like Alice did senior year. They didn’t know how _sad_ she was, how scared, how much she didn’t want to marry Clifford Blossom and move into that big, drafty manor on the hill.

They didn’t know how she had her first kiss with Alice in a South Side trailer, or how she cried afterwards and never talked to Alice again.

“You don’t look surprised to see me,” Alice finds herself saying, trying to avoid the memories of the last time she saw Penelope looking so vulnerable.

Penelope shrugs, resuming that haughty posture that never seemed to come naturally to her. “I don’t get many visitors. And I heard you were with child as well. Come inside and get off your feet.” She doesn’t mention the hang-up telephone call.

Alice wants to protest, to ask why Penelope is being so nice, but getting off her feet sounds _amazing_.

“Alright,” Alice says, slipping into the lion’s den. “May I use your restroom first?”

*

Thornhill is truly _horrifying_ at night. The kitchen has a big bay window looking out at the gloomy garden, and the breakfast nook is swathed in velvet and brocade like it’s a funeral home for…what? Pancakes? Alice hates everything about it. She certainly can’t imagine raising her daughter in such a place and hopes the Blossom twins won’t grow up to be so _gothic_.

Penelope lays out an interesting spread—two bowls of orange sorbet and a bag of salted pretzels. Alice raises an eyebrow and Penelope blushes.

“I have to sneak the pretzels,” she says, dipping one into the sorbet. “Clifford is trying to get me to eat less salt. He says sweets are good for the babies.”

“Sounds like something the head of a maple syrup empire _would_ say,” Alice mutters, but Penelope shoots her a withering look.

“Don’t. Clifford is a very attentive husband. He dotes on us night and day.” Penelope smooths her hands protectively over her belly.

Alice notices how she doesn’t say _me_ , but _us_ , as if Clifford didn’t do the same before she was pregnant. But she decides to pick her battles. “I came here for a reason.” She wants to lean over the table with clasped hands, but her belly won’t allow it, so she simply steeples her fingers above her bump. “Why is my husband doing clandestine business with yours?”

If Penelope is surprised, she doesn’t show it. “I haven’t been involved in the business since I became pregnant. That world is outside of my realm at present. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

There’s something about her clipped tone that makes Alice sad. She’d throw Hal about before letting him make any decisions about her body or career. It sounds like Penelope spends her days sitting in this drafty mansion while Clifford runs her world from the outside.

“Do Hal and Clifford know one another?” Alice came here for answers, and she needs _something_ besides the persistent fear that a gargoyle is going to come flying down from the chandelier at any moment.

“Like I said,” Penelope snaps, tight-lipped, “you’ll have to ask him yourself.” She stirs her spoon through the melting sorbet and doesn’t meet Alice’s eyes.

Alice leans back in her chair to release some of the pressure on her back and hips. _She’s keeping a secret_ , she thinks, eyeing Penelope. _She knows something_. “There’s something going on between the two of them, and I want to know what it is.”

Penelope glances up then, and she almost looks _fearful_ , like she’s said too much by saying nothing at all. “Really, Alice. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m just…” she wrings her hands in her too-big bathrobe sleeves. “I’m so on edge. I spend all day moping around this house and my mind spins and spins.”

“Then go outside,” Alice says, exasperated. “What are you so afraid of?”

Penelope’s silence is her answer.

“Maybe I should stop by more often,” Alice says. The charitable words taste strange in her mouth. “This place will make you insane. I mean, if there aren’t _already_ ghosts in here, I’m sure you’ll find some.” She starts to reach across the table but stops halfway. “It isn’t good for you to be in the dark all the time.”

“No,” Penelope says, shaking her head. “The last thing I need is a…a… _Serpent_ in my life. In my house.” She says the word like it’s dirty, like Alice is something to be ashamed of. It feels like a slap, and a _betrayal_.

Alice is done with that. She’s spent her entire life trying to shake the South Side, and she’s finished with being ashamed. “I might come from the Serpents,” Alice says coolly. She still had her dead brother’s jacket as a reminder. “But I know that you don’t have to come from the South Side to be a fucking _snake_.”

Penelope stiffens. She looks away, eyes cast down like she can’t bear to look at Alice. “I may be a snake. But at least I’m not pregnant with my second child and pretending it’s my _first_.”

Alice stands up too fast, her back aching. Penelope _knows_.

She knows the one thing nobody else, not even Hal, knows. She knows the one thing that could send Alice’s life toppling to rubble and she says it so _casually_ , like it couldn’t completely destroy Alice. She moves towards Penelope on the other side of the table, knocking her teacup to the floor.

The smash makes Penelope startle. When she looks up, her face is wet with tears.

“Stop crying,” Alice hisses. She moves to grab the front of Penelope’s robe but stops short. She might be trembling with anger, but Penelope is still pregnant. She exhales deeply and feels weak, clutching at the table for support.

Penelope rushes to her side and eases her into the kitchen chair. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“Why do you hate me?” Alice takes a few deep breaths, waiting for the anger to pass. She can’t look Penelope in the eye. “After all we went through in high school. You must remember. You came to my house crying, scared to death. We sat in my room and I played you Van Halen because you never heard them before. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” Penelope says. She covers her face with her hands. “How could I forget the only time someone was nice to me just because I was _me_?”

Alice’s anger melts away like the bowl of orange sorbet on the counter. Penelope’s damp face and glassy eyes recall the memory like it was last week and not ten years ago. They drank hot chocolate, the kind from the packet with little dry marshmallows, and sat on the pink shag rug in Alice’s bedroom. Alice put Penelope’s hair in a French braid. They talked about boys, about their families, about being more than they were raised to be. Penelope smiled when “Little Dreamer” came on the stereo, and Alice played it three more times even though it was her least favorite song on the album.

_I’m going to kiss you_ , Penelope said, leaning in. Then she pauses, eyes hooded. _May I kiss you_?

Alice just nodded and met her halfway.

“Then why are you so angry still? You ran away from _me_ ,” Alice says. The baby kicks, pressing down on her bladder, and she winces. “And now it’s ten years later and you still act like we’re insecure high school girls afraid of disappointing our parents.” She doesn’t realize until after she’s said it that Penelope probably _is_ still afraid of her mom and dad, and now Clifford and _his_ parents.

“You wanted this life so badly,” Penelope says, gesturing around the expansive kitchen with its marble countertops and stainless-steel fridge and heavy furniture. “All I ever wanted was to escape it. Only one of us got our wish.”

Alice furrows her brow. She and Hal are doing well, and he did come from a relatively well-to-do family, but they’re nowhere close to Blossom-levels of wealthy. But before she can say anything, Penelope stands on shaky legs, clearing her throat.

“I think you should leave now. I need to rest.”

“You never answered me,” Alice presses. “I still don’t know why you hate me. It certainly can’t be _jealousy_.” Nobody’s ever been jealous of Alice in her life.

“I don’t hate you,” Penelope says softly. “But I try very hard to. Because if I didn’t hate you, then I’d have to love you. And that’s simply not possible.”

Alice’s chest aches, and she doesn’t think it’s just the heartburn back at it again. She can’t honestly say she’s ever been in love with Penelope, but she did entertain the possibility once, all those years ago in a girlhood bedroom with the petite redhead sitting across from her. She was so open to anything back then, open to any sort of love that would get her out of the South Side.

But Penelope was always a closed book. And Alice doesn’t think that will ever change.

“Then I’m sorry it had to end this way,” Alice says. She gathers her coat and purse and allows Penelope to lead her into the foyer. The house seems to be drenched in shadows, making Alice shiver, and she’s not looking forward to the walk down the hill to her car.

“I’ll see you out,” Penelope says.

They walk down the hill side by side, too close and too wary, worried for each other’s bodies though they no longer know a thing about each other. The wind whistles through the trees and sends a shower of dry leaves down onto Alice’s car.

“Take care, Penelope,” Alice says, opening the driver’s side door. She pauses before getting in, and in a moment of uncharacteristic sentimentality, presses a soft kiss against Penelope’s cheek.

Penelope closes her eyes for a moment. She looks oddly peaceful, like the kiss was a final act. An ending. “Will you be back?”

Alice feels her chin tremble and gets in the car before Penelope can see. “No,” she says.

“That’s for the best,” Penelope says. “Drive safe.” She closes the door for Alice with a resounding thud.

By the time she turns down her street, Alice is crying, and she is _not_ a crier. She brushes away the tears with her sweater sleeve but they keep coming and she yells out, frustrated and hormonal and needing to pee again. She can still taste pretzels and orange sorbet on her tongue.

Hal still isn’t home when she pulls into the garage. She runs a warm bath and prepares herself a cup of decaf. When she sinks into the water, she closes her eyes.

She won’t tell Hal about her visit, about Penelope’s pregnancy, about what happened between them in high school, about _anything_. She has a hundred things to keep her busy before the baby comes, so she’ll slip into that role of dutiful wife and mother and it will all just…fade away. She’ll have her secrets, just as Hal has is.

She hopes that someday, when they’re older and wiser, it won’t come back to haunt her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the xx's "On Hold."


End file.
